Dec. 2, 2013

Shame!

A word to the retailers who opened their doors on Thanksgiving: Shame for spoiling a special family day which was an oasis in the weeks of breathless Christmas merchandising.

MARY F. BELL

Anchorage, Ky. 40223 –

Faulting DeSales coverage

As a parent of a DeSales High School football player, I am very upset with the newspaper coverage you are giving our team. They have worked very hard this year and have accomplished so much by going to the state finals on Saturday. The headline in your paper on Nov. 30 read “Male falls but DeSales advances to title game.” You had a huge article on Male’s game on the cover page of the sports section with huge photos. The article on DeSales’ game was on Page C8 — no photos or anything. Unbelievable! Please give our team and coaches the credit they deserve.

SHARON HOOVER

Shepherdsville, Ky. 40165 –

Defending capitalism

Any Christian who questions the advice of St. Peter’s earthly designate has to recognize the strength of the tide they are swimming against but Pope Francis has focused so exclusively on capitalism’s flaws that it makes sense to contemplate its strengths as well.

Foremost is the obvious, “a tenfold increase in real per capita income over two centuries,” that as Alan Greenspan has written soundly discredited central planning in the 20th century. Then there is the matter of who makes the decisions in a planned economy given that the price signals of the numerous individual competitors that exist in a free market are absent. Who amongst us mere mortals has that considerable wisdom?

Social justice plays a role, of course, since rewards often go to those who work the hardest and have the best ideas as John Locke suggested would result in the meritocracy that accompanies capitalism. How much would the world benefit from discouraging individual initiative in the pursuit of absolute equality?

Look at Argentina where the pontiff grew up. Firmly in the grip of later-day Peronists who practice central planning with a vengeance, its recent history of nationalizing businesses, restricting free trade, and manipulating the currency has backfired with runaway inflation and widespread scarcities that have made an international beggar of a nation that was once one of South America’s wealthiest.

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Certainly the pope has a point about the allocation of resources and the responsibility of our Christian admonitions but hard evidence says capitalism should be celebrated and not discarded if we are to have a collective chance of prospering to the day of ultimate judgment.

GARY OWEN

Louisville 40223 –

Thanks, Sen. McConnell!

I have to hand it to Sen. Mitch McConnell. He’s not shy about responding to the C-J when they rub him the wrong way.

In his Nov. 29 letter, he attempted to take the editorial page to task for supporting the change in the Senate filibuster rules. Forget about his false accusations of “breaking Senate rules” and a “brazen power grab.” His assertion that it was nullifying the voices of 4 million Kentuckians is laughable. Any nullifying of the people’s voice was being done by Republicans in the Senate who would not let the president do his job. The voices of 62.5 million people who voted for Barack Obama in 2012, including nearly 700,000 in Kentucky, were the ones being kept down.

There are 93 vacant seats on the federal bench. If the GOP had just approved an occasional appointee here and there, the nuclear option probably would not have come to pass. As it is now, the president can fill all of these seats with just a simple majority vote. For that I would like to say a sincere “thank you” to Sen. McConnell and all the other Senate obstructionists for making this happen!

LLOYD DOOLEY

Mount Washington, Ky. 40047 –

Limo convenience

I need to take this opportunity to thank reporter Jere Downs and the C-J for the informative article on shopping on Black Friday. After reading about the disparity between the East End and the West End in educational results, the sad state of the political landscape and the pall of global climate change, it is refreshing to read a front-page article about people who have a limousine that can take care of portal-to-portal service, even to a mall 90 miles away. It does the heart good to know nothing will stand in the way of conspicuous consumption in the face of inequality.